BarstoolNate has been the Washington Wizards' lone screaming defender for years now, and the back half of this week he's been swinging at every windmill that'll have him. The whole thing kicked off, predictably, with Stephen A Smith doing the Stephen A thing — saying the loud confident version of a take that doesn't really hold up if you've actually watched the Will Dawkins front office tear it down to studs.
Nate's core complaint with SAS: confident, wrong, and contagious.
I know I shouldn't take the SAS bait but I fucking hate when he does this. He doesn't know what he's talking about, he says it with confidence, and he gets people to believe it. Anyone who has followed the Dawkins-era knows the Wiz are doing everything right as an organization.
The actual Wizards case, per Nate, is pretty boring and pretty defensible: they tanked on purpose, they got cooked by the lottery balls more than once, and they've built a young core that scouts and front-office types apparently rave about. Coming "1 ping pong ball from Wemby" and "1 from Cooper Flagg" only to slide to 8 and 6 is the kind of bad luck that turns a 2-year tank into a 4-year one — but it's not the same as being run by clowns, which is the SAS framing.
Nate's longer reply laying out the actual rebuild timeline.
Fair question. For starters, it's Stephen A Smith's job to know the facts instead of saying the same tired lines about the Wizards. The truth is this team completely rebuilt from the ground up. And got very unlucky in the process, which extended the tank. We were 1 ping pong ball from Wemby and then 1 from Cooper Flagg. Ended up picking 8th and 6th instead. But the current front office has done tanking correctly and it's been PAINFUL yet has built an incredible young core, has gotten rave reviews across the league for professionalism and facilities, and from the top down this team is dedicated to now building a powerhouse. All things Stephen A should have known but instead just said the classic "lol Wizards" rhetoric. Thankfully Perk did his research and knows ball and pushed back. Perk is invited to the parade. SAS is BANNED.
And while Nate was fighting that war, a separate front opened up: the trade-the-pick discourse. Every time a team lands near the top of a draft, the takes machine spits out the same graphic — flip it, get veterans, win now. Nate, who has been waiting roughly a decade for a player like Ace Bailey to even be on the board, was not in the mood.
Nate to anyone with a "trade the pick" graphic.
If I see one more fucking “we should trade the pick” graphic I’m gonna lose it. Didn’t come all the way to trade for Ace Bailey please get outta my face
Then the cavalry started showing up. EBo, who admits he tapped out somewhere around the LeBron-era beatdowns of the Gilbert-Caron-Jamison Big 3, formally requested permission from the fanbase for a half re-zarding. PFT, already rezarded as of the day before, welcomed him in. Nate, the guy who never left, opened the doors for both.
EBo asking the fanbase for clearance to reboot.
Nate welcoming the returners back.
@PFTCommenter @EBoKnowss As someone who never quit on them we welcome you both back
The funniest wrinkle is PFT immediately pumping the brakes on his own enthusiasm. Being a Wizards fan, he wants you to know, is not Jets fandom and it is not Mets fandom — the Jets at least sniffed an AFC title game this century, the Mets have had real teams, and the Wizards haven't cracked 50 wins in a season since 1979. That's the bar being cleared here. Not contention. Not playoffs. Fifty wins, once, in nearly half a century.
PFT calibrating expectations on what "full Wizards fan" actually means.
Being a full wizards fan is very different from rooting for the jets and Mets. You were in the afc championship game like 15 years ago. The Mets have had some very good teams over the yrs. The wizards havent won 50 games in a season since 1979
Which is sort of the whole point. The SAS shtick works because the Wizards have given everyone permission to laugh for 40-plus years. The bet Nate is making — and that PFT and EBo are now half-making with him — is that this front office is the first one in a long time that actually deserves the benefit of the doubt. Heavy is the crown, even when nobody's handed you one yet.